This book is one of my best book friends. No matter how long it's been since we last saw each other, we always connect immediately. And I always come back to it after short term flings with other books. We have history, you see.

Colleen McCullough is a master of words and story telling. She makes the words come alive on the paper and brings me across the world alongside her characters.

DNF

I was disappointed with this one. Lots of historical information but it is sooooooooooooo slow going and I was indifferent to the characterization. I only got part way through and had to stop even though I was told that the second part of the book is better.

This was an excellent novel, historical fiction at its best. Fascinating to look at the 18th century British judicial/penal system, and the early settlements of Australia. Well drawn characters and a story that draws the reader in from the beginning. I read it years ago and I'm ready to give it a go again.

A heavy read at 832 pgs but still interesting. Good story with lots of historical detail and great character development. Parts of it, particularly with descriptions of the prisons, can get gruesome so not for someone with a weak stomach! Based on actual events. Some dry passages but if you can get through that the story is worthwhile, the perseverance of the characters through their adversities is inspiring.

I listened to this on tape and really enjoyed learning about the settling of New South Wales. Learning about the transportation of the convicts and the settlement of Australia was interesting. It does have some "sailor's" language.

I loved this book. I hadn't read anything by Colleen McCullough since The Thorn Birds. I found it to be a very fast read, I got right into it. Very good historical fiction about the British penal colonies that were the beginnings of the settlement on the Australian continent and adjacent islands. The author hinted at a sequel which I would definitely seek out to read.

It's quite interesting to compare this to "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes. That book is a masterful, well-researched non-fiction account of the founding of Australia, while this novel examines the same issue in the form of a fictional story (that apparently is loosely based on some actual real lives). This novel also focuses on the appalling ocean voyages of the first settlers, and the founding settlements at Norfolk Island as well as Australia. Once again Colleen McCullough --- a Ph.D. neurophysiologist who worked at the Yale medical school for ten years (before setting out to write novels)--- proves herself a master of historical fiction --- no doubt because she does such painstaking, detailed research from original sources.

As much as I love Colleen McCullough's Roman series of books, I was very much let down by this novel. I would rate it as a 7 out of 10, hence the 3 stars.

The first part of the book has some promise and keeps some interest of things to come. The tragedies and turmoil of Richard keeps you going. Once Richard Morgan is sent to prison the story starts to break down. Still I kept going, hoping for better.

Once at sea we see some action, but never enough to take it to the next level. Somehow Morgan is able to rise above the crowd he is forced to co-habit. Then we move on,..

Once at the new land, Morgan keeps his knightly image intact. Always pragmatic, always helpful, never a chink in his armor. Hmmm,... is he human?

Now we are at the half-way of the book and you will keep at it hoping for better. Occasionally, the dramas at Norfolk island hold promise but they never develop much beyond the immediate needs of Morgan - too bad this as I was hoping to have more insight on the early Norfolk colonists.

Eventually, Morgan finds a new woman, has a family and land for them to live on. And yes, he gets his pardon.

Then the book ends.

I suspect if Collen had more time to write and re-write this novel it would have been better. Appears rushed. Still compared to many other novels I have read, it still ends up with a pass - its worth reading, more so if you have a passing interest in the fate of convicts in the 1780 era. Once more, this book has led me to seek more books and hopefully some good novels of this same era.

Concluding, not Collen's best but still a read of interest.

Fabulous Read!!

This starts out with Richard Morgan living a fairly peaceful life in Bristol, England in 1775. He suffers some major losses, is wrongfully convicted of a crime and, along with many other convicts, is shipped off to what is now Australia, in order to help relieve England's severely over-crowded prisons. I was glad to learn about this historical event about which I previously knew nothing, but ... McCullough obviously did lots of research for this book & it seemed she was determined to include every last detail, whether or not it moved the story forward. Thats OK if you like to read all about things like how, when, and how often a particular ship's bilge water was cleaned, but it was way too much for me. Also, there were way too many minor characters to keep track of -- and most also did nothing to move the story forward. I usually love historical fiction, but I didn't love this book. I was only able to finish by just skimming big chunks near the end (I almost never do that).

Sooooo I finally finished Morgan's Run. It has been a long and hard reading. Not because the book was not interesting: it was full of History, romance, adventure. But it's just too long, and with too many details. I learnt a lot about Australia and its discovering by England, but I had not expected to have such a lesson. I feel less stupid now that I have been reading Morgan's Run (I used to know absolutely nothing about the history of this part of the world), but I haven't felt as if I have been reading a great novel.
Actually, I have not appreciated much the main character: Richard Morgan is too perfect. Everyone admires him, he never commits any error... And this is quite boring. You can't really imagine such a man could have existed...
As a conclusion, we could say that this book will be appreciated by people particularly interested in History, but I would not recommend it just to entertain yourself. I won't read the suite if Colleen McCullough writes it, it's just too much time and energy for a theme I don't love.

Richard Morgan, the son of a British tavern keeper, is a devoted husband and has a son who he adores. He expects he will always live in Bristol, a town he has lived in all his life and knows well. He has no desire to venture far from its surroundings, expecting to raise his family here and eventually live out his days. But after inadvertently coming upon and reporting excise fraud, he unwittingly becomes trapped in the net of the British justice system. Unable to properly defend himself, he is falsely accused and convicted of a crime and sentenced to deportation. He boards a ship with hundreds of other male and female convicts and makes the treacherous and grueling voyage across the sea to Rio de Janeiro, on through the South Atlantic to Cape Town and from there on to New South Wales, Australia which is to be his new home.

Richard stands out among the convicts on the ship. While others sink to weeping, depression or fighting their keepers, he remains calm despite the chaos that surrounds him. He quickly learns what he needs to know and how to act if he is to survive this difficult and dangerous journey. He does not allow himself to be bullied, does not sink to despair when confronted with problems but instead uses his knowledge to confront and solve them. He willingly helps the others and thus gains supporters and friends. He also realizes his prime concern must be to maintain his health, and he teaches the others to do so as well. Unwittingly, although he does not want it, he becomes the unacknowledged leader of the group. Even those who guard him grow to admire and respect him and he eventually establishes friendships with his keepers that help him and his fellow convicts survive.

After travelling by sea for over a year fighting storms, disease and starvation, their ship finally lands in their new home in Australia. Here they face the harsh conditions of an environment they do not know or understand, full of plants and animals they have never seen as well as dangers they do not anticipate. But they must find a way to become self-sufficient if they are ever to survive in this new and strange environment.

This novel takes place in eighteenth century Britain and Australia and easily demonstrates the extensive research McCullough did to bring us this interesting story. But the book is far too long (over 600 pages) and includes details that become onerous and burdensome to a necessarily slow moving plot. She also introduces so many characters that we never really get to know many of them because they are never properly developed.

In Richard Morgan, McCullough has created a man who seems almost too good to be true, but she insists he was a real man, an ancestor of her husband. And perhaps it is that connection, that desire to see a distant relative in a strong and good light that has led her to create a character full of resilience and strength, who never seems to make a mistake and comes out well despite the many roadblocks, disasters and tragedies he faces.